Blood Jewels
by elphabathedelirious32
Summary: Everyone left her, from the day she was born until the day she died. And beyond. A look at how Lorena became the vampire she is today.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I thought a little explanation of Lorena was in order, given how she sweeps onto the scene already completely compelling and crazy. For the record, I'm not a fan of her and Bill, but I find her amazing and kind of awesome in a twisted way, like Lady Macbeth. But everyone deserves a backstory, so here's my humble idea of hers. I'm planning this as a multichapter fic, but not a long one…I think I'll take it up to her turning Bill. So…hope you enjoy! **

**Disclaimer: None of the wonderfulness that is True Blood is mine. *pout* **

Everyone left her, from the day she was born till the day she died.

First her mama, in childbirth, then her daddy, kicked in the head by his horse on his way home from business up North. He was bringing her back a beautiful little doll, "porcelain skin, just like my lovely Lorie," he wrote in his last letter, but not even the doll survived. It broke too, and when she was small, she thought that was an omen that she was going to die, too.

She would, but not for a long while, and even then death wouldn't stick. It preferred to follow her, like a rabid puppy, nipping at her heels but never cutting her deep enough to infect her, just spraying its poison in a long trail behind her.

So she grew up on her uncle's plantation, dressed up like that porcelain doll and in return expected to lie as still those nights he didn't get what he wanted from his wife. It was easy not to cry; she was all cried out by then. Twelve years old and her eyes were already hard as jewels.

Daylight, she stalked through the house, feeling her cousin's eyes on her, jealous as hell, or her aunt's, full of the heat of hate, or her uncle's, smug with the assurance of possession. Even the slaves watched her and talked behind their hands, called her things she wasn't, and the emeralds of her eyes burned at the corners, and she prayed to become armored all over, cold and hard as a statue or a new-dead corpse.

There was someone, though, who made it all right; Jace was her uncle's house slave, and he was fifteen the summer she was thirteen. Her blood was on fire and skin to skin barriers didn't seem so thick. They kissed in the cool twilight, hiding in the tall grass at the edge of the property. She let him lift her skirts and kiss her bruises, and she warmed his scars with her lips, too. Every night, she'd tell her aunt and her horrid cousin Malcolm she was taking a walk, _alone_, thank you, and she'd meet Jace behind the stables and kiss him and kiss him until her heart was full of blood again and she was glad to be warm and alive.

Of course it didn't last; of course it blew up in her face and the blood of it got all over her and climbed in under her skin like a cancer and wounded her all over again; how could she ever have thought it would be otherwise? Malcolm followed them, and ran back to the house like the fool milksop he was, and told his father.

When they came back there was a mob waiting. Her uncle grabbed her arm tight and didn't let go.

"This boy has violated my niece!" he screamed.

"No, he didn't!" she yelled back, trying mightily to pull herself free. "You're the one who-" her uncle clapped a hand over her mouth.

"See what he's done? Poisoned her body and her mind!"

Lorena fought like a banshee as they grabbed Jace, the sun going down behind them, its orange light carving hollows in their faces, marking them for the devils they were. She managed to kick her uncle twice and scratch him deep across the cheek with her nails, wild as a witch in the night, but she couldn't twist away, no matter how she struggled. They dragged her and Jace away from the house, beating him as they went.

She knew they were going to the ancient oak, and she did her best to slow their progress, hoping someone, anyone, would see them, stop them, startle them so Jace could get away, _anything_, but anyone who counted in the Savannah of 1753 was there in the night with them, as if at a witches' Sabbath, stripping off their Sunday selves and showing the monsters they were.

When she saw them tie up the rope she managed to bite her uncle's hand and scream, howl like an animal into the darkness, making such noises the men grew uneasy around her and their resolve went slack as her uncle's dick midway through.

"Take her back to the house," her uncle hissed at Malcolm. "Don't let her run."

Malcolm grabbed her wrist and pulled her away, still fighting. When she broke away and tried to run back, he grabbed her by her long dark hair and pulled her to him. She smelled the reek of fear and excitement mingled on him like sour milk, and she kicked and screamed again, until he clapped a hand over her mouth.

"You'll give it to a nigger but not to me?" he growled in her ear, and her whole body stilled. He grinned and loosened his trousers, trying to force his tongue into her mouth, and then – she exploded, limbs thrashing in every direction, biting, scratching, kicking, hitting, a whirlwind of violence until finally she felt herself free and ran back to the house.

She didn't have much time. She grabbed the silver from the dining room, stuffed it into her apron. Next her aunt's jewelry. She hadn't time to feel guilty, and anger was burning so hot through her she's sure she'll combust if she doesn't keep moving. Back to her room, everything thrown in a sack. A few simple dresses. Some of her books. The locket with the miniatures of her parents. All her own money, from her father.

She glimpsed Malcolm coming from her window, and she moved like she'd never moved in her life, flying down the stairs and out the back door, sprinting across the lawn toward the stables, memories aching in her soul. _No time_. She throws open the stable door and takes her mare, going bareback, no time for a saddle.

She'll hide in the woods tonight. She spent half her childhood in that forest; no one knows it better than she. Tomorrow she'll go, ride for somewhere else.

She's heard New Orleans is different from here, less bound up in societal restriction.

But through the night, she waited, sleeping against her horse, trying with all her mental strength to ward off the nightmares of blood and pain that were snaking through her hair and ears, climbing into her mind like her uncle into her bed. Finally, she slept.

Morning woke her, the sun's fingers lifting her eyelids by force. _Hurry_.

Her uncle and aunt probably still thought she had run off for the night in a fit of pique, were probably still expecting her back for dinner and punishment by noon.

Hah.

By noon she could be twenty miles away.

She climbed on the waiting back of her horse, Electra (her choice of name, of course) and wheeled back toward the house. It wasn't yet five. Her aunt, uncle, and cousin would be sound asleep for hours yet.

But she had forgotten. The slaves were awake, moving through their quarters, making breakfasts, going out already to the fields. She rode among them and they went silent as her presence moved like a ripple through them, eyes meeting hers, full of hate or fear or admiration but the common current among them all was _respect_.

Lorena Eleanor Douglas sat high on her horse, riding, riding, west.

But first: she turned around again, faced the sun and the great old oak, old as the land itself, branches rising like arms, twining like fingers to embrace the great orb of the sun, black against its light.

She stared for a long time at the lowest bough and what hung from it.

When she turned away, tears dripped from her jewel-hard eyes, and her heart was so numb she wasn't sure if the tears were from sadness or from the pain of staring into the sun.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes **_**au fond**_**. Enjoy! **

Plenty happened in New Orleans, and it tended to happen fast, as though the city was an anodyne to the rest of the region, a trumpet blaring _vivace_ in ¾ _staccato _to the _legato _cello in _ritard _of Louisiana as a whole.

Lorena worked a while as a maid, in a few households. It wasn't easy but it wasn't hard, either, and she soon grew skilled enough with her hands to let her mind wander as she worked. There were places she had blocked off within her memory, but the walls she had made hardly hid the topmost branches of a certain oak tree.

Some days, Lorena cut that tree down fiercely in her mind. Best days she ripped it out of the earth with her own bare hands. _To pluck a rooted sorrow from the brain. _

She read too, at night, from her employers' library. She had never needed more than a few hours of sleep.

"You'll sleep when you're dead," her father used to say, in response to the concerns of her nurse at Lorena's refusal- inability- to comply with a proper bedtime. Lorena had begun to stop wishing for the sleep of death, but she read all she could anyway of that undiscovered country, in whose bourn lay all those she had ever cared for. The science of death, the mythology of death. She was sixteen when she let go the last vestiges of hope in God and heaven and turned her eyes and her mind forward.

She was always rather separate from the other servants in the house and the neighborhood. The girls her own age didn't like her because she was prettier, and also because they could sense, like hounds on a fox, that she was _different_. That she spent her free time reading rather than gossiping didn't help. The older women didn't like her because she was aloof, not deferential. The men and boys didn't like her because she was utterly indifferent to their attentions.

The master and mistress did like her, however. The lady of the house was glad to have someone quiet, who did not take liberties but was perfectly polite, about her, and her husband enjoyed the girl's intelligence. For her part, Lorena was enamored, not of him, but of their relationship. She was reminded when the master returned home and rushed up the stairs to greet his wife with news of some triumph of advancement, of _Macbeth_ calling his wife "my dearest partner in greatness." She watched their interaction with great interest, trying to ignore the fraying edges of the hole in her that missed seeing such moments between her parents, that ripped further when she thought of Jace.

She thought her employers' relationship perfect, and she envied it and wished for it with all the strength of Tess Durbeyfield's love for Angel Clare, and, in the end, about as much success.

A few weeks before Lorena's twenty-second birthday, in her fourth year at this household, she was sitting in the library, reading a book of Greek myths, when she heard the sound of her master's footfalls, solid and assured, enter the room behind her.

Another servant would have stood immediately and curtseyed. Lorena kept her seat until the man had come around before her chair, and she kept it a moment longer as she held his gaze before standing and making a minimal genuflection.

"Lorena," he said, a bit hoarsely.

"Yes, sir," she said without inflection, removing a long finger from the book and marking her place instead with an envelope from the desk beside her.

"You're from a good family, aren't you? Not common."

"I've found things worse than common in the best-born people," Lorena said.

"Ooh," he said, in mock hurt, "Was that a jab, dear girl?"

"Not you and your wife, sir," Lorena said. She was beginning to get nervous, to feel the weight of her pulse in her wrists and at her neck. She thought she caught an amber whiff of whiskey and moved behind the heavy leather chair, castigating herself as she did. _Not everyone is like your uncle. Lorena, not every man is cruel. _

He came toward her again, as if to pat her on the shoulder.

"You're a good girl, Lorena," he said.

Lorena's instincts screamed, but, guilty, she pushed them down.

He gently clapped her shoulder. She let her breath out in relief-- and then she felt her bones in a death grip as he forced her toward him, bringing his lips to hers.

Lorena didn't move, her mind working. _Table, book. _She reached for the heavy tome of mythology. He didn't notice the movement. She brought it up between him and bashed him in the chest with it, pulling back hard at the same moment.

The tactic worked. Lorena sprang free and ran down the stairs before her master had the chance to bellow in shock, the book still clutched in her hand. She ran for her room, scooped her money into her apron pocket, snatched her coat for protection, and was gone once again into the night.

Lorena ran blind through the streets, heart pounding, eyes blurring, terrified somehow as if he would run out in shirtsleeves and thunder down the street after her, a rebellious maid. She knew her chances were over here; if she applied for another job as Lorena Douglas, they'd ask for references. He'd say she was a thief or a whore. She'd never find legitimate work—and if she couldn't move on fast enough, she'd have to—but that didn't bear thinking of, not now, not this night.

She had four years' savings, almost untouched, and more from the household before that. It was enough to live on for a year.

She found a cheap hotel on the outskirts of the city and rented a room for the night.

As she was handing over the money, she noticed the delicately manicured hands of the proprietress, complete with scarlet nails. Fascinated, she looked up, into the most brilliant blue eyes she had ever seen, set like sapphires into a face that gleamed white gold, pale as bone, with lips red as ribbon and hair blacker than a raven's.

The red lips smiled. White teeth almost glowed in the low light.

Despite herself, Lorena smiled back.

"You're a very beautiful girl, Miss Douglas."

Lorena fell into the onyx centers of those eyes. "Lorena, please," she said. She blinked slightly, and felt her feet go firm on the ground again.

"Lorena," the woman said in a golden hum. "A strong mind, too."

"I suppose those are the things that've gotten me in trouble," Lorena said ruefully. She wanted to take her eyes away, stare at the security of the wooden counter or a painting on the walls- or just the walls, really—but she couldn't.

"Pity," the woman said. She had an accent Lorena had never heard before. "I imagine you defend yourself well, though, don't you, _a storin?_"

"I try," Lorena said. "It isn't easy, being only a girl."

"No," the woman said. "I should think not, _cailin an- bhronach_."

"What does that mean?" Lorena asked.

The woman looked startled at being questioned, but so briefly that an instant later Lorena was sure she imagined it.

"It means I can see that you are a very sad girl," she said. "Should you like it if we had tea tomorrow? I'll send someone to bring you to my rooms. Four o'clock?"

"All right," Lorena said.

"Good. Annabelle will take you to your room."

"Ma'am, if you don't mind, might you tell me-" Lorena looked up, and, to her shock, realized that she and the maid were the only ones in the lobby.

The beautiful woman had disappeared.

**A/N: Sorry if this moved a bit fast, but I need to get the plot to a certain point. **_**To pluck a rooted sorrow from the brain **_**is a line from **_**Macbeth **_**that refers to Lady Macbeth's distraught sleepwalking escapades and the guilt over Duncan's murder that they imply. Tess Durbeyfield and Angel Clare are characters in Thomas Hardy's **_**Tess of the D'Urbervilles**_**. Tess's love for Angel Clare leads her to first hide, then reveal a secret about her past that causes him to abandon her, which in turn drives her to desperation. So not good. **

_**A storin **_**is a term of endearment in Irish Gaelic roughly translated to "my little dear" or "my little darling." There are accents over both the o and i that my computer refuses to accommodate. **

_**Cailin an-bhronach **_**is an approximation of "poor little girl" or "very sad little girl." **

**Disclaimer: I own approximately none of this. Well, except plot and OCs. So I don't own anything you recognize, we'll go with that. **


	3. Chapter 3

**Apologies for delay and relative brevity. College and life have intervened. **

**I do not own the character of Lorena or the vampire universe she will eventually inhabit, just some aspects of this plot and invented characters, like Catriona. **

Lorena fell asleep easily and awoke shocked at how quickly and with what facility she had become comfortable in her hotel room.

She sat up and looked about the room in the sunlight, seeing it clearly for the first time. It was much more luxurious than the exterior had indicated, and the worry of money flitted across her mind, but she pushed it aside and _looked_. The bed was mahogany, a four-poster, carved in a motif of Celtic triquestras and leaves, covered in a rich, burgundy brocade, under which Lorena snuggled in the last rays of sleep, feeling all at once safer and happier than she had since her father's death.

There was a mahogany desk in one corner, an armoire in the other; a big, bright window, sun peeking through the damask curtains. There was a thick Persian rug on the floor and paintings on the wall—early Italian renaissance, Lorena thought; fully of Biblical scenes in rich reds, golds, and sky-blues.

She yawned deeply and stretched herself awake, lifting the heavy covers and delivering herself of her fabric womb, her feet curling as they prepared for cold wood and flexing in pleasure when they found thick carpet instead.

Holding herself in the odd suspended animation of her happiness, treading gingerly in her thoughts as well as on the lovely rug. She went over to the armoire, where she had thrown her meager worldly belongings the night before. _Damn, _Lorena thought, her first curse in a long while. She hadn't any other clothes…her maid's dress would hardly be suitable for her meeting this evening with the strange, lovely proprietress.

Sighing, Lorena opened the armoire, vainly trying to recall just how much money she had saved…and…_sweet Jesus!_ She'd never _seen _so many clothes, and so fine—not even in Mme. LeFevre's closet, nor her aunt's—there were silks of the most vibrant colors, thick damasks and brocades, taffetas, velvets…_oh_.

Lorena's happiness peaked, and then abruptly keeled off a cliff as _thought _began slowly to return to her. _Beauty and the Beast_, that Italian folktale whose name she could not recall—every single story with a young girl in an enchanted castle—there was always, _always_, a monster.

But then, there'd been monsters every place she'd ever lived, and none of those had even offered enchantment as compensation…

Lorena was young and alone and much in need of a home, of someone to trust. She reached for a lovely violet silk, a morning gown, and a note fluttered to the floor:

_My dear Lorena: _

_It is my great pleasure to welcome you to this, my home and the source of my livelihood._

_You seem an intriguing, intelligent young woman, with difficulties you do not deserve. It_

_is for this reason that I have taken the liberty of giving you some of my old clothes. It is no charity; _

_few people interest me anymore, and if you will join me for dinner this evening at eight I shall _

_consider myself in your debt. A maid will escort you to my chambers. There is a bath down the _

_hall on your right, and a library downstairs for your pleasure. Enjoy them both, a gra._

_Catriona Brigid Ni Nhiall_

_Catherine Bridget O'Neill_

The nagging feeling of the illusory enchanted castle returned, but Lorena shoved it away. _ There is kindness in the world, _she thought fiercely. _Miz O'Neill's just being kind. It happens, Lorie. _

_Not to me, _she thought, forcing it away again. Whatever monsters lurked here, she could face. She had seen the monsters men could become. She was not afraid.

Besides, a bath and the feel of silk on her rain-chilled skin sounded like heaven.


	4. Chapter 4

Her bath finished, Lorena slipped the violet silk over her head and peered at herself in the mirrored panel of the armoire. The color did wonders for her dark eyes, and her drying hair shone, cleaner than it had been in a while. She'd slept far later than usual; until past noon, which she thought was likely the reason for Miss O'Neill's having pushed back their meeting until the evening. It was coming on December, and even in Louisiana the evenings could grow chilly and the sunsets early, dark coming fast and unpredictable, so Lorena put a grey shawl over her shoulders and went exploring.

First , the library: another surprise from a place so externally run-down. There were more books than Lorena had ever seen in her life put together, and Lorena had seen a not inconsiderable number of books. They were obviously well cared for; the leather spines glowed with polish and frequent use. Lorena gaped in shock for a few moments before beginning her explorations. She mapped the place in her mind like an archaeologist would, quickly discerning the pattern and arrangement of the books, before kidnapping a few herself and setting down to read. ..

Lorena didn't look up until the words on the page before her eyes dimmed enough to make it difficult to continue. She glanced at the window and saw that the sun had disappeared and torches had been lit outside a few neighboring establishments. She noted a kerosene lamp and several candles on the table where she sat, but no matches, so she stood, stretching with a slight groan, and set about searching for some, a task made difficult by the growing dark. There were no matches in the library, so Lorena moved on to the hallway, which at least was lit. She hadn't brought either of the candles with her, and she wasn't willing to attempt removing the hall's candles from their glass-caged installations, so she began opening doors, looking for perhaps a linen closet or kitchen where, if not matches, she might at least find someone who knew where they were.

The first two doors she tried were locked. She supposed they must be guest rooms, like her own, probably empty. The third door was indeed a linen closet, but there were no matches nor servants in evidence. The fourth door had the bolt shot, but it had missed the lock, so she pushed it open noiselessly.

It was almost completely dark, but in the slight glow from the hallway she could see that the room was entirely bare, but for a worn carpet on the wooden floor, all of it far more dilapidated than what she had seen in the rest of the house. Curious, Lorena moved further into the room, her foot sliding the rug sideways a few inches, revealing the outline of a trapdoor.

_Oh_.

Well, that was interesting. Glancing over her shoulder, Lorena, propelled by the same curious, near-self destructive impulse that had made her first lock eyes with Jace, that had kept her always a few seconds slow to respond to her employers' demands, her curtsies too slight, her 'ma'ams' and 'sirs' just a shade shy of mocking, reached down, ran across the floor, feeling the shape of the trap door, and, finally, pressed.

It sprung open, and she peered down.

An earthen cavern. A candle, unlit. A few matches, a blanket. She reached down to snatch one of the matches when the blanket moved, and from one end she saw a few raven-black curls spill out.

_Damn and hellfire_.

She jumped back, dropping the match in her hurry, flung the trapdoor down and the rug over it, shut the door fast behind her, and sprinted in the direction of her room.

She didn't make it. A woman in a maid's uniform, a few years older than Lorena herself, with hair the color of fire and frighteningly sharp grey eyes, her skin as eerily alabaster as Catriona's, stepped from one of the rooms to stand in the hallway before her.

"Hello, Miss Douglas," she said. The form of address was respectful, but there was no hint of deference in the woman's words or her stance; there was only power. She smirked like a cat batting a mouse between its paws, deciding when to bite.

"He-hello," Lorena said. "I was just-"

"_Running_ back to your room to dress for your dinner with Catriona, yes?" The tone was one of slightly amused chastisement. "Well, I should think you _would _be hurrying, as you're meant to be there in an hour, and it'll likely take you that long to choose a dress."

"Hardly." Lorena had adopted the same haughty tone, and the redhead's mouth twitched slightly, in surprise and further amusement.

"Hmm. Very well. I'll escort you, and wait outside in case you need assistance." She grinned, the smile of an animal who has caught the scent of its prey. "After all, we wouldn't want you to…get lost."


End file.
